Now-Fired Walmart Employees Throw and Drop iPads in Viral Video

Video Warns Consumers Not To Buy High-End Electronics From Retailer, But So Far No Returns

In a testament perhaps to risks of buying high-priced electronics from Walmart but maybe more so the durability of Apple packaging, a new viral video shows four employees in the back room of a Pikeville, Ky., store purportedly throwing and dropping iPad boxes and taking video of the tablet abuse.

"We've seen the video of several night-shift associates destroying merchandise in the back of one our stores in August," a Walmart spokeswoman said. "As anyone can imagine, it made us wince. And we're also embarrassed. The associates involved no longer work for Walmart."

One of the ex-employees in question opens the video with the statement: "This is why you don't buy an iPad from Walmart."

The Walmart spokeswoman added, however, that despite the apparent abuse, "We haven't received any return of the merchandise."

She added that Walmart stands behind the work of its associates "who work very hard in the care and handling of products."

While the video was shot in August, it was posted on YouTube only on Nov. 8, and after being posted on Reddit and publicized by CNET among other outlets has accumulated nearly 3 million views.

The Walmart iPad video joins a growing list of incidents where employees of major national chains record themselves behaving badly, post the work on social-media sites and get fired for it. That includes, just within the past four months, a Burger King employee standing in bins of shredded lettuce and a Taco Bell employee purportedly urinating on an order of nachos.